The rise of human ecology

During the 1970s anxiety about the environment not only deepened but changed
in quality and emphasis. Compared with the 1960s, less attention is now given to
population growth and more to energy demands. More significantly, there is a
growing tendency to make correlations between the quality of the environment and
the quality of human life. Ecological, economic, and social decline are more
often discussed as though they are inter-related (although the relationship is
rarely well argued). Environmental problems now engage a greater mix of
disciplines and professions than a decade ago, and in each group of specialists
there is a greater awareness of other disciplinary orientations to similar
problems and (dare we hope?) a new readiness to enter into genuine dialogue
across disciplinary and professional boundaries.

This trend in the great ecological debate that began in the 1950s manifests
itself in both scientific and political forums in the form of an evolving
concern with "the human factor" in ecology and development. This
concern is evident in popular literature on economic development and resource
management from various parts of the developing and the developed world, and is
reflected in the changing relationship between the so-called "basic"
and "applied" approaches to research and in the background dialogue
between the natural and the social sciences. But although the ideals of resource
management are now somewhat more tempered by considerations of human interests
and local perceptions (than, say, in the fifties), and applied ecology is more
and more commonly understood to include a measure of social science, little
progress has yet been made in the determination of acceptable standards in
potentially conflicting policy areas, such as ecology and human wellbeing in
relation to each other, let alone in integrating these concerns generally.
However, in spite of the occupational divisions and other vested interests that
constrain such intellectual reorientation and hamper the associated
reformulation of problems and reorganization of scientific effort, a
supra-professional and supra-disciplinary specialization has begun to develop,
and a degree of integration of these newly related interests is already
discernible. The fact that it is not yet possible to put a generally accepted
name on it - though "human ecology" is often pressed into service, and
for want of a better term is sometimes used in what follows - shows that its
identity is barely formed and its independence scarcely viable. But there seems
little doubt that it is gathering momentum and therefore warrants careful
attention. This essay is concerned with some of the assumptions from which it is
developing, and with its direction and
significance.